he almost universal
absence of sacrifice to the God relatively supreme. He was, from his
earliest conception, in no need of gifts from men.

On this matter of otiose supreme gods, Professor Menzies writes, "It is
very common to find in savage beliefs a vague far-off god, who is at the
back of all the others, takes little part in the management of things,
and receives little worship. But it is impossible to judge what that
being was at an earlier time; he may have been a nature god, or a spirit
who has by degrees grown faint, and come to occupy this position."

Now the position which he occupies is usually, if not universally, that
of the Creator. He could not arrive at this rank by "becoming faint,"
nor could "a nature-god" be the Maker of Nature. The only way by which
we can discover "what that being was at an earlier time" is to see what
he IS at an earlier time, that is to say, what the conception of him is,
among men in an earlier state of culture. Among them, as we show, he is
very much more near, potent and moral, than among races more advanced in
social evolution and material culture. We can form no opinion as to the
nature of such "vague, far-off gods, at the back of all the others,"
till we collect and compare examples, and endeavour to ascertain what
points they have in common, and in what points they differ from each
other. It then becomes plain that they are least far away, and most
potent, where there is least ghostly and polytheistic competition, that
is, among the most backward races. The more animism the less theism, is
the general rule. Manifestly the current hypothesis--that all religion
is animistic in origin--does not account for these facts, and is
obliged to fly to an undemonstrated theory of degradation, or to an
undemonstrated theory of borrowing. That our theory is inconsistent with
the general doctrine of evolution we cannot admit, if we are allowed to
agree with Mr. Darwin's statement about the high mental faculties
which first led man to sympathetic, and then to wild beliefs. We do
not pretend to be more Darwinian than Mr. Darwin, who compares "these
miserable and indirect results of our higher faculties" to "the
occasional mistakes of the instincts of the lower animals".

The opinion here maintained, namely, that a germ of pure belief may be
detected amidst the confusion of low savage faith, and that in a still
earlier stage it may have been less overlaid with fable, is in direct
contradic